Mental illness and bipolar disorder on Twitter: implications for stigma and social support.
J Ment Health
; 29(2): 191-199, 2020 Apr.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31694433
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mental illness (MI), and particularly, bipolar disorder (BD), are highly stigmatized. However, it is unknown if this stigma is also represented on social media.Aims:
Characterize Twitter-based stigma and social support messaging ("tweets") about mental health/illness (MH)/MI and BD and determine which tweets garnered retweets.Methods:
We collected tweets about MH/MI and BD during a three-month period and analyzed tweets from dates with the most tweets ("spikes"), an indicator of topic interest. A sample was manually content analyzed, and the remainder were classified using machine learning (logistic regression) by topic, stigma, and social support messaging. We compared stigma and support toward MH/MI versus BD and used logistic regression to quantify tweet features associated with retweets, to assess tweet reach.Results:
Of the 1,270,902 tweets analyzed, 94.7% discussed MH/MI and 5.3% discussed BD. Spikes coincided with a celebrity's death and a MH awareness campaign. Although the sample contained more support than stigma messaging, BD tweets contained more stigma and less support than MH/MI tweets. However, stigma messaging was infrequently retweeted, and users often retweeted personal MH experiences.Conclusions:
These findings demonstrate opportunities for social media advocacy to reduce stigma and increase displays of social support towards people living with BD.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Apoio Social
/
Transtorno Bipolar
/
Saúde Mental
/
Estigma Social
/
Mídias Sociais
/
Transtornos Mentais
Tipo de estudo:
Diagnostic_studies
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2020
Tipo de documento:
Article